After reading the forums for several years now and gathering as much information as possible, I am officially taking the plunge and building my home theater. I’m hoping a lot of forum users join the fun and share their knowledge and opinions with me.

Layout
The space is unfinished at 25’ 6” x 13’ 9”. Some obstacles include a radon preventive system, window, sump pump, support beam, support pole, and some other minor obstacles.

This is the view from the proposed bathroom

View from the theater room looking toward the bathroom

View from the back of the theater room. I’ve since completed the sump pump

I am planning on a 7 seat configuration with 3 in the front row and 4 in the back row. The seats are Roman’s Fusion Lagoon seats.

The rear seats will be on a 12” riser (2x12 with 2 layers of plywood). Overall riser dimensions will be the width of the room x 96”. The 120” wide 16:9 AT screen will be approximately 3’ from the unfinished wall providing approximately 29” for speaker and subwoofer placement. Viewing distance from row 2 will be approximately 21’ and first row viewing distance will be approximately 13’ 10” providing a 1.38 screen width viewing ratio. The stage will be built over the sump pump with a trap door for the hopefully infrequent service of the sump pump. Stage design will be similar to often duplicated

Soundproofing
Ceiling – 1 layer of 23/32 OSB + GG + 5/8 layer of sheetrock
Walls – 1 layer of 23/32 OSB + GG + 5/8 layer of sheetrock
Soffits – 5/8 layer of sheetrock + GG + 5/8 layer of sheetrock
Door – Need help here, from my recollection 1 ¾” solid core door should do the trick?
Outlets – Putty pads
Screen Spot Lights – I will not do any additional soundproofing for the can lights as they will be in a soffit within the room

Acoustics
Need help here, but the preliminary plan is
OC 703 floor to ceiling and 2” OC 705 in the corners cut into triangles
Upper Half Walls – 1” OC 703 wrapped in GOM fabric and wood frames
Lower Half Walls – Not sure, from an appearance standpoint I want uniformity, but I am not sure what to stuff in the frames?
Ceiling – First reflection 1” OC 703 wrapped in GOM fabric with fiber optic stars, the rest of the ceiling will be a fiber optic star ceiling without the OC 703 unless it is beneficial
Floor – Thick carpet and thick pad over concrete
Stage – Sand filled stage
Riser – Fiberglass filled

Electrical
3 3” GU10 can spot lights above AT screen http://www.homedepot.com/Lighting-Fa...kuId=202573694
4 to 6 wall sconces to provide room lighting (do you think this may be too dark?)
Star ceiling (power outlets located in columns)
2 outlets in back wall for 4 power recline theater seats
2 power outlets in front of riser for 3 power recline theater seats
2-4 outlets located in columns
2 20 amp outlets on dedicated circuit for subwoofers behind the screen
15 or 20 amp outlet on dedicated circuit for projector

HVAC
I’ve brought in a couple HVAC contractors and all agreed my current system is sufficient and I can T off the main trunk line with an additional zone. They should be here in a few weeks to do the entire basement and run a flex line into the theater.

1) Guilford of Maine will ship any fabric samples out to you in a hurry free of charge. Just got in 20 samples and I must say the FR701 is gross, but probably makes the best for a star ceiling while Achorage and Streetwise are beautiful fabrics. Metallation is also a really nice fabric but appears one side gives off a reflection

2) This is really hard work

3) While everything is straight, I could have saved quite a bit of time if I bought the laser level early in my build

4) Buy drywall screws by the buckets instead of 5lbs boxes

5) soundproofing was a complete waste of time. There is some improvement, but nowhere near enough. Maybe I missed a step, but I was pretty meticulous sealing all openings, adding mass, staggered studs, adding extra gg, sealing boxes, etc etc etc

Last update for a little while...I promise
About 90% through framing the theater

Next up is my uncle and father in law will be over either this weekend or next weekend to help me frame the rest of the basement and then it is time to put on my electrical and plumbing hat and get to work

Any thoughts on flipping the room 180 degrees? Build a trap door in your riser to access the pump? Would give you total freedom on the screen wall/stage construction - although you're certainly not hurting for room length!

Any thoughts on flipping the room 180 degrees? Build a trap door in your riser to access the pump? Would give you total freedom on the screen wall/stage construction - although you're certainly not hurting for room length!

Jeff

I thought about that, but decided having the wall on the other side because there is a 4" Radon Preventive System coming out of the ground. The pipe goes vertical 18" and the does a 90* bend into the wall. Since I will need "access" to monitor it's functionality it will be a lot simpler and less disaterous to pull away the OC705 triangles. Otherwise it wouldn't matter which direction the room was in

How tall is your space? and what do you figure you'll be left over with once the stars are in?

Have you worked out where the door will be? How did you decide?

The ceiling is 8'10" and I'll be losing 3/4" (OSB) + 5/8" (drywall) + 1" (brackets to attach star ceiing) + 3/4" (MDF star ceiling). So a total of 3 1/8" will be lost. The plan is to build a soffit approximately 15" wide x 12" -13" high. With the 15" width I'll have just over 10ft between soffits so I plan to be using 3/4" x 4' x 10' MDF sheets of MDF. I figure the star ceiling will be 16' front to back so it'll be a scary long build (total 10' x 16')

Yeah the door is in the picture with the framing up. I didn't have many options to place the door. It was either to the left or right of the red support beam. I decided putting the door closer to the seats because
1 - If it was closer to the screen it could be a first reflection point of my speakers and would be a pain in the a$$ to put an acoustic panel on.
2 - Closer to seating will minimize traffic on carpet
3 - I have the option to select a door that opens in either direction. If I chose the other spot I could only choose to open the door into the theater because of how I am finishing the rest of the basement
4 - I plan to eventually put a bar outside the theater so this will open right into the main attractions.

I thought about that, but decided having the wall on the other side because there is a 4" Radon Preventive System coming out of the ground. The pipe goes vertical 18" and the does a 90* bend into the wall. Since I will need "access" to monitor it's functionality it will be a lot simpler and less disaterous to pull away the OC705 triangles. Otherwise it wouldn't matter which direction the room was in

Does the radon pipe *have* to rise 18" before it turns? Don't know any of the particulars of those systems - but if it's just "the common way", you could easily cut that PVC and re-glue that bend at a 6" height... (again, unless there's some code or functionality that requires otherwise)

Does the radon pipe *have* to rise 18" before it turns? Don't know any of the particulars of those systems - but if it's just "the common way", you could easily cut that PVC and re-glue that bend at a 6" height... (again, unless there's some code or functionality that requires otherwise)

Jeff

I did ask the guys installing the system to put it as close to the ground as possible and thats what they came up with. They could have made it a few inches shorter but with the slight pitch, rubber coupling, pipe partially coming out of the ground, and 90* bend they did a pretty good job. Another plus is the room above is the room above is a family room whereas the other side of the theater is below the kitchen so at least they'll be a little bit less vibrating of the wine glasses.

Does the radon pipe *have* to rise 18" before it turns? Don't know any of the particulars of those systems - but if it's just "the common way", you could easily cut that PVC and re-glue that bend at a 6" height... (again, unless there's some code or functionality that requires otherwise)

Hi Larry, glad to see that you started a build thread. Happy to help with any questions HT or construction wise.

Thanks for joining the party Mike

I always have you on speed dial

Speaking of construction, is anyone aware of a general material list for a stage? Turns out I probably have to move the stage construction way up the to do list because the home owner association is having the lawn redone and I don't want to ruin the lawn when I am running 4,000+lbs of sand to the basement

Also does anyone have a guideline to riser construction? Might as well order all the material at the same time

Speaking of construction, is anyone aware of a general material list for a stage? Turns out I probably have to move the stage construction way up the to do list because the home owner association is having the lawn redone and I don't want to ruin the lawn when I am running 4,000+lbs of sand to the basement

Also does anyone have a guideline to riser construction? Might as well order all the material at the same time

I hope someone has good tips here. I'm trying to work through the same problems.

Speaking of construction, is anyone aware of a general material list for a stage? Turns out I probably have to move the stage construction way up the to do list because the home owner association is having the lawn redone and I don't want to ruin the lawn when I am running 4,000+lbs of sand to the basement

Also does anyone have a guideline to riser construction? Might as well order all the material at the same time

Depends a lot on how big you want the stage. Just be aware though that I used about 1000 lbs less sand than I originally thought I was going to use based on cubic ft per lb. Luckily I did not buy all the sand at once.

Nice choice of sub. I have 2 JTR captivators. You may want to think about the possibility of placing 2 subs in your theater, not for the increased overhead, but for more uniform bass throughout the seating area. Easier to reduce nulls and peaks with 2 subs, than with one.

Depends a lot on how big you want the stage. Just be aware though that I used about 1000 lbs less sand than I originally thought I was going to use based on cubic ft per lb. Luckily I did not buy all the sand at once.

Is a stage essentially just a square with joists? That being the case I pretty much know what I need but I'm not sure if I need to take something else into consideration.